Resources

Client Alerts, News Articles, Blog Posts, & Multimedia

Everything you need to know about BMD and the industry.

Ohio Board of Pharmacy COVID-19 Waiver Update

Client Alert

The State of Ohio Board of Pharmacy has issued waivers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to aid licensed practitioners in their day-to-day operations. As the pandemic has continued over the years, the State of Ohio Board of Pharmacy has intermittently reviewed the various waivers. Effective August 10, 2022, some of those waivers that were once granted have been rescinded. Below is a brief description of the rescinded waivers and the impact of their rescission. The Board of Pharmacy website sets forth a full list of the current waivers and rescinded waivers.

Brief Title/Description of Waiver

Impact of Rescission

Extension of emergency refills for schedule III-V controlled substances permitting longer supply for each prescription and to permit more frequent refills.

Adjusted O.R.C. § 4729.281 to permit pharmacists to dispense certain refills up to 3 times without a prescription. Requires health insurance to cover these medications if the drugs were already covered by the plan.

 

Three things must be met before the pharmacist may refill the medication:

  1. The pharmacy has a record of the prescription and the prescription does not provide information for refills or a time that refills must be provided.
  2. The pharmacist is unable to obtain authorization from appropriate health care professionals.
  3. The pharmacist, using judgment, determines this drug is necessary to sustain the life of the patient, continue therapy, or will cause patient harm if not dispensed to the patient.

Authorized prescribers in an opioid treatment center are permitted to delegate personal furnishings of buprenorphine products to licensed nurses.

This waiver has now been adopted in OAC 4729:5-21-02(F)(3), so the permission to delegate personal furnishing of buprenorphine to licensed nurses is now supported by law.

Storage and use of dangerous drugs for the treatment of COVID-19 was permitted at a facility’s satellite location if the facility was a terminal distributor of dangerous drugs and complied with various standards.

This waiver was rescinded without any part of it becoming law. Satellite locations of facilities are no longer permitted to maintain possession, custody, or control of dangerous drugs.

Waiver of the 5 percent limit on wholesale sales of dangerous drugs by a licensed pharmacy, as defined in OAC 4729:5-3-09.

The waiver was rescinded. The 5 percent limit on occasional wholesale sales, as defined in OAC 4729:5-3-09, is now required again.

Suspend in-person BLS training. Pharmacists were able to meet their Basic Life Support training requirements and obtain online certifications through various organizations without having to attend in-person training.

A pharmacist must complete a BLS training curse that is offered either wholly in-person or at least partially in-person. OAC 4729:1-3-02(M) and OAC 4729:2-3-02(A)(3).

Expand the pharmacy intern supervision requirements in OAC 4729:2-1-01 for interns administering COVID-19 vaccine from a maximum number of 6 interns to a new, maximum number of 12 interns if a licensed nurse of EMS personnel is assisting. If there are two licenses nurses or two or more EMS personnel, then there can be up to 18 interns.

This expansion is rescinded and there can now be only a maximum of 6 interns being supervised by the pharmacist while administering immunizations.

National Guard personnel assigned to any Ohio-licensed pharmacy may perform technician trainee activities (4729:3-3-01) and any other COVID-19 waivers issues by the board under direct supervision of a pharmacist without registration by the board.

This authorization to permit National Guard personnel to serve as pharmacy technicians is rescinded and National Guard personnel may not operate as a pharmacy tech without registration by the board.

 

For information regarding Ohio Board of Pharmacy regulations, please contact Kate Hickner at kehickner@bmdllc.com or any member of our Healthcare & Hospital Law Practice Group


Property Owner Protection from Tax Valuation Challenges

New legislation provides significant new protections for commercial property owners against challenges to valuation primarily by local school boards and prohibiting side agreements to avoid tax valuation changes. The Ohio Legislature has approved House Bill 126 which will go into effect July 2022 but will effectively apply to the 2023 tax valuation year.

No Surprises Act Update: The IDR Portal is Open

The No Surprises Act (“NSA”) became effective January 1, 2022, and has been the subject of lawsuits and criticisms since its inception. The goals of the No Surprises Act are to shield patients from surprise medical bills, provide to uninsured and self-pay patients good faith estimates of charges, and create a process to resolve payment disputes over surprise bills, which arise most typically in emergency care settings. We have written about Part I and Part II of the NSA previously. This update concerns the Independent Dispute Resolution (“IDR”) procedure created by Part II but applicable to claims covered by Part I. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) finally opened the Portal for providers to submit disputes to the IDR process following some updated guidance regarding the arbitration process itself.

Updated FAQs for the No Surprises Act - Good Faith Estimates

The No Surprises Act (“NSA”) became effective January 1, 2022. Meant to protect consumers from surprise medical bills, the new law is good for consumers, but vexatious for health care providers and facilities. One particular source of frustration is the operationalization of the Good Faith Estimate (“GFE”) requirement, governed by Part II of the regulations that implement the NSA. The GFE requirements apply broadly to all healthcare providers and facilities that practice within the scope of their state-issued license.

IMPORTANT PRF UPDATE! HRSA Allows Providers the Opportunity to Correct Missed Period 1 Reporting

Late Wednesday, April 6, HRSA announced that it was going to allow providers with extenuating circumstances that prevented them from preventing a completed Period 1 Report to submit a Request to Report Late Due to Extenuating Circumstances.

Advanced Practice Providers and Telemedicine Start-Up Surge

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we heard a lot about “surges” that happened all over the country regarding the virus. One of the other interesting “surges” we have followed is the “surge” in new healthcare business start-ups, particularly businesses owned by advanced practice providers, such as nurse practitioners, physician assistants, certified nurse midwives, clinical nurse specialists, and certified registered nurse anesthetists (“Advanced Practice Providers” or “APPs”). One of the hottest areas in the healthcare start-up surge has been the creation of practices that are telemedicine focused.